As he prepares to retire, Blix has given several
interviews. This is the AP report of his comments on the missing WMD in Iraq.

Sarah Estabrooks
Program Associate
Project Ploughshares

Jun
10, 9:34 PM EDT

Blix Defends Inspectors' Credibility

By EDITH M. LEDERERAssociated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix on Tuesday
said his inspectors' failure to turn up weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
may have been nothing but a reflection of the truth, and he called American
criticism of the prewar search off target.

"I would say that I think the criticism that was directed to us was
misdirected," Blix told The Associated Press in an interview, He retires
June 30 after three years of leading the U.N. search for banned weapons.

"He was an ancient type ruler who got control of a country with an oil
income and could use 21st century weapons. That was a very dangerous
combination, and I think we all feel a great relief that he is put out of
action," Blix said.

But Blix defended the independence and credibility of U.N. inspectors who
left Iraq shortly before the United States and Britain attacked the country,
in part at least, because of allegations Saddam had chemical, biological and
nuclear weapons.

The United Nations refused to back the military ouster of Saddam and the
administrations of President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair have come
under heavy criticism because those weapons have not been found in the three
months since the war began.

However, Blix declined to gloat, saying that the matter was too serious.
And he wished the U.S. teams now searching for banned weapons in Iraq
"good luck."

"I think we should all be looking to truth," he said. "We
want to find out what was the real truth" - whether Saddam was concealing
illegal weapons or had destroyed them before he was attacked.

Nevertheless, he was critical of intelligence his teams received from the
United States and other countries before the war began, saying the information
was "not very good ... and that shook me a bit."

In the weeks before the war, some U.S. officials strongly criticized Blix's
reports to the Security Council for failing to support the Bush
administration's contention that Saddam had an active illegal weapons
programs. Blix reported that his inspectors had not found such weapons, but
still had many outstanding questions about the country's previous weapons
programs.

Blix credited the U.S. military build up which started last summer for
pressuring Iraq to allow U.N. inspectors to return in November after four
years.

While many people in the U.S. government believed from the beginning that
inspections wouldn't work, Blix said he thinks Bush was sincere in initially
wanting to give inspections a chance and not go to war.

Even in late February, if Saddam had come forward as the British hoped and
confessed "everything" about his weapons program that could have
averted war, he said.

Saddam didn't, and U.S. patience gave out - but Blix said his inspectors
should have been given more time.

"At the end, Iraqis were pretty frantic in trying to find
explanations, not very successfully," he said.

"I certainly think a number of months more would have been interesting
to have, provided that we still had the military pressure," Blix said.

"The longer that one does not find any weapons in spite of people
coming forward and being rewarded for giving information, etc., the more I
think it is important that we begin to ask ourselves if there were no weapons,
why was it that Iraq conducted itself as it did for so many years?," Blix
said.

"They cheated, they retreated, they changed figures, they denied
access, etc. Why was that if they didn't have anything really to conceal? I
have speculations, one could be pride," he said.

"Saddam Hussein regarded himself as an emperor of Mesopotamia, some
said, and he regarded inspectors as impostors," Blix said.

Nonetheless, he said, U.N. inspectors could not jump to conclusions - and
the Bush administration shouldn't have either.

"I think they should remember that in the future, too, that the
international inspection that is not on a leash is the inspection that has the
greatest credibility," Blix said. "It might even be right."